all 4 of us had the traveling blahs tonights, so we chose chipotle for take out rather than the dinner of saltines & pickles that was all our pantry would have afforded us. while paying, i saw an advertisement for this...
(sorry - cannot get the pic to download?! basically it says if you dress up like a "horrifying processed food product", you can come in on halloween night & get a $2 burrito)
if it wasn't painfully obvious to me before, it's now been confirmed that i should never have made that darn cowboy costume for hudson. don't do what i did, for goodness sakes! don't hand make your child a costume, don't even go out & buy a cute little costume - just dress him in yellow, tape a "velveeta" sign to his forehead & get a free burrito!!
and really, all joking a side, i have to tell you that you can now get a kid's meal chicken quesadilla, black beans, rice, chips, & organic milk for $3.50 @ chipotle, making that a seriously good deal.
anyway, seeing the whole "horrifying processed food product" thing (& the fact that the burritos will support jamie oliver's food revolution movement) made me think about my personal little food revolution. several events have changed our way of eating, cooking, seeing food, but i would say living in paris & having hudson were the 2 biggest factors.
my sister started talking about american food production & eating well approximately 2 days after moving to austin for college, but you know big sisters don't always listen to their little sisters :) it was living in paris that opened my eyes to what fresh & whole food (& access to these!) really meant. parisians regularly get fresh, HAND made bread, cheese, meat, whatever. preservatives aren't even necessary because you're going to eat that whole bagette tonight anyway & you'll just drop by for another tomorrow. all matter of veggies, fruit, meat, & handmade food are available to much of the city via farmers markets. it turns out that when it's easier to walk out your door & grab a baguette, rotisserie chicken, a little cheese, & sliced fresh tomatoes than to run to mickey d's for dinner, you'll do it & you'll end up a lot healthier for it.
also, like a lot of people i started seeing food differently when my first child started eating solids. i might be fine with eating stuff with weird ingredients i can't pronounce, but feeding that to hudson made me think. little by little i've done a bit of research here or there & asked questions of friends who are kinda granola-y, & little by little we've changed our diets. it's a total process. we try to make good choices when we can (especially for our kids), & don't sweat it when we can't or don't.
i tend to think more about whole foods & about what is the most natural choice, versus choosing low fat or low sugar options. for example, in dairy products i often get low fat because that usually just means the product is made with lower fat milk. however, food that is labeled low sugar often means the sugar (which is a natural substance) is replaced with a sugar substitute (which is usually not natural - something like aspertame).
michael pollan, who is a respected authority in whole foods & the current food revolution, has 3 guidelines, which i think are great -
eat food. not too much. mostly plants.
"eat food" means eat whole foods, not things with ingredient lists a mile long with substances you can't even pronounce. if only ice cream & chocolate cup cakes were plants :)
anyway, so there's my little food revolution beginning story. i'll share more later - like the progress of our garden (which will make you laugh, so just wait).
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